Still unexplained
The hunt for the origins of Covid-19 has for the past four years been a tangled web of politics, power struggles, and international finger-pointing.
Beijing today ridiculed the Quad Summit held in Washington yesterday, claiming the first face-to-face meeting of the leaders of the four countries (India, US, Japan and Australia) was clearly aimed at containing China.
”…an interlude during the meeting involving US President Joe Biden complaining about his translation device malfunction is an omen of the emerging anti-China clique’s future — that it cannot function at all due to the US’ declining capability and changes of the global situation,” Global Times, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party of China (CPC) said.
The daily observed that although the four leaders did not mention China and were trying to play down disputes with it, the entire agenda and all topics in the summit focused on China.
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”It is an initiative that aims to incite disputes and confrontation under the banner of cooperation especially in the Western Pacific,” the daily quoted Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations of the China Foreign Affairs University, as saying.
The newspaper noted that the Quad Summit took place just days after the US, the UK and Australia announced a security pact, AUKUS, under which Australia will be provided with nuclear-powered submarines. ”AUKUS (has) cast a shadow over the Quad Summit, and will dilute the Quad members, especially Japan and India, and make the summit less effective,” it added.
It quoted another Chinese expert as saying that the US should be clear that its strength and global influence were declining with tons of domestic problems needing to be solved urgently; for example, the debt ceiling, and the global situation has changed with most countries not wanting to pick sides between China and the US. The US could not form an anti-China coalition like what it did to the Soviet Union during the Cold War, it added.
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